Why it works: Sugar and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,667 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Delicious Tomato Figs
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the tomatoes
Peel the tomatoes and boil them whole in the sugar until they are penetrated but not falling apart.
Lay the tomatoes on flat dishes to dry.
Make the syrup and dry
Boil the syrup until it is quite thick and pour it over the tomatoes from time to time.
When dry, pack the tomatoes in boxes in layers, sprinkling sugar over each layer.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + tomatotop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,667 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tomatoes and, as a thick syrup, preserves them and gives them their candied texture.
- Round ripe tomatoes
- Form the body of the dish; they soften in the sugar and then dry into chewy, fig-like pieces.
The step that matters
Boiling the tomatoes whole in sugar. Boil only until the tomatoes are pierced but still intact. Overcooking breaks down the flesh, so the pieces lose their shape and cannot dry into firm, whole pieces.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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